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mistakes

I’m currently experiencing buyer’s remorse. It’s not the kind that I can simply return to a store to fix, like expensive shoes or a fancy dress.

So, I received my little car registration renewal in the mail; it’s nothing new. As always, I go online and renew for 2 years, thus saving me maybe $2, or something like that. The bigger savings is actually in my sanity because ain’t nobody got time to go to the DMV to conduct such a simple transaction that can take all day with someone who is less than thrilled to be sitting across from you at the counter. I navigate to the screen I need and fill out my information but, before I can continue, at the bottom of my screen it says something that basically means ‘your tags are 10 years old and falling apart, you should get new ones’. I didn’t particularly need to get new ones, in my opinion, but I decided ‘what the heck’.

Here’s where the trouble starts….

For as long as I can remember (at least 10 years) back to the beginning of my car-owning career, I’ve had but one license plate. I didn’t care that most people had to ask me what it “stood for”. I didn’t care that, even after I explained it, some people just didn’t understand. I loved it because I thought it described who I was in 7 little letters – PANARQN – aka PanaRican. Although back then I wanted it to say PANARCN but, believe it or not, that was taken. It wasn’t just taken by any random Jose. Oh, no! It also happened to be a Honda Accord, like mine. How do I know, you ask? I know because I saw it driving northbound on I-395 one day. I was so upset! I wanted to get in front of her so she could see that I had to make a serious compromise to get the plates that should have been mine. The nerve! But I digress.

Back to the registration…

I checked to see if PANARCN was available and, no surprise, it wasn’t. So I decided to play with the configuration in every which way possible to see if I could make it work; other letters, numbers, a dash here or there, that kind of thing. I was excited at the thought of a shiny, new license plate for my less than shiny car, Theodore, who just so happens to be another Honda Accord. Seriously, I’ve come full circle for pete’s sake! That license plate should be mine! I’m very passionate about this. 😉

After investing maybe 5 minutes into the excitement of a new license plate, I finally chose one that I rationalized in my mind would make the most sense. I proceeded to pay for it and that was that, done and done. Now, I played the waiting game for it to arrive which could take up to 30 days. I didn’t think too much about it until it finally arrived. Once I opened the package, I instantly regretted it.

PAN-RICN. No. No. No. Stop. I change my mind. I don’t like it. I don’t want it. It just wasn’t the same. It was like I lost a piece of me. I mean, I know PANARQN isn’t any more clear, but I wanted it back. I felt guilty for ordering it. I didn’t even care that it was shiny and new, or that it said “Virginia is for Lovers” which always reminds me of my littlest sister for some reason. I didn’t want it anymore – PERIOD – but I can’t return it. WHAT HAVE I DONE?!! *sigh*

I did what any rational adult would do, I left the license plates in the box, haphazardly lying around the house to get lost. Oh, please get lost! I was originally provided with new stickers for my old plates from the DMV to last me for another month, just in case my new license plate took the full 30 days to be delivered. I put the stickers on my old plates and totally ignored the new ones. After the entire month of July and part of August, I actually started worrying that I would lose the plates or, the more likely scenario, they would be thrown in the trash. I decided it was time to make the most of a sh*tty situation; I put the plates on my car. So this is my life for the new 2 years. I don’t even know who I am anymore.

All the while, I still haven’t paid the $75 ticket that I received for having expired tags which prompted all this madness. When will I ever learn?

It’s easy to look back on past actions and decisions and say, “yeah, that was a mistake I won’t repeat”. You live and learn, right? Some mistakes are big and some are small; some are life altering while others go unnoticed. As I touched on in a previous post about Forgiveness, some mistakes require us to forgive even ourselves so that we can move on. Today is the final day that I grapple with a mistake I made just over a year ago.

I know we all get that feeling deep down in the pit of our stomach when something just isn’t right. That feeling that says, “Don’t do it – something’s fishy!” The one that you wish the actors/actresses in horror movies would listen to so that we can save ourselves from screaming at the TV, “DON’T GO IN THERE!”

If only I would have taken heed to that feeling on October 5, 2014.

That is the day I sat in front of a car dealer and threw caution to the wind, regardless of the feelings in my stomach and what I would normally do in a situation like that. I sat there and purchased a car that was not only completely against what I went to purchase but out of my comfortable price range. That is the day I sat there with my then husband, whom I married barely two month earlier, and who encouraged me to purchase a nice car because “I deserved it.” Everything I had ever spent money on up until that point in our relationship was purchased under the guarded understanding that I need to be able to afford this myself without his help because it wasn’t guaranteed. Let’s face it, in life, nothing is guaranteed.

But I did it anyway. I purchased Mona, my car, under the assumption that since there were now two incomes, I shouldn’t worry; besides, we were newly married. Well, not anymore. And you know how “they” say that you shouldn’t name something or else you’ll get attached? Yeah, don’t do that because it goes for a car, too. A year later and I am completely attached to my car that I shouldn’t/can’t keep. Could I blame him for encouraging me to get a car out of my range when he already knew he wasn’t sticking around? Yes, I could. Yes, I want to. Yes! Yes! YES!!

Alas, I can’t. At the end of the day, I made that decision. I bought it myself, under my name, using my good credit, not his, and without the approval of that ugly feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew it was a mistake, but I made it anyway. Today, I forgive that mistake and search for a new-to-me car (or motorcycle *wink*wink*) to call my own….and with a kick ass name to match. 😉

Lesson Learned. Take heed to the feelings of uneasiness!
Chances are, they’re there for a reason.

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. You may or may not be able to tell from my last post that I don’t mind doing little side “jobs” for my boss(es) because at this point in my life at the office, it actually keeps things interesting. Yesterday was no exception.

THE OATMEAL INCIDENT: So, I get a call in the morning from the boss and it goes like this:

Boss: Have you been to the cafeteria yet?Considering his past requests, this is a new one, so i’m unsure how to respond with anything other than the truth.Me: Um, yes?Boss: Oh….I was going to ask if you could get me some oatmeal if you hadn’t gone down yet…..I’m pretty sure this is still a request to get breakfast for him, so I give in.Me: I can still get that for you.Boss: Oh, can you? Great! I can give you some money and then you can take the $1.25 out that I owe you from the soda that you got me yesterday.

I can’t help but smile because, quite frankly, I had already forgotten about the $1.25 and, since there was no additional comment about the soda, that probably means it DIDN’T explode like I thought it would. So, I mosey into his office, get the money, asked if he wanted a large or small size – he wants small and he adds that he wants a scoop of brown sugar. Off I go to the cafe.

As i’m getting his oatmeal a co-worker starts chatting me up. The conversation wasn’t anything deep, but i’m so ADD that I turn on the autopilot for the oatmeal task and focus on the conversation. Blah, blah, blah, healthy eating, blah, blah, blah (healthy eating being the topic of lots of conversations in the cafeteria for me, but that’s another post for another day). In my attempt at multi-tasking, I suddenly realize that I am no longer scooping large spoonfuls of lumpy oatmeal into the small cup. No, sir, I’ve made it over to the “toppings” section of the cafe where i’m scooping rather large spoonfuls of brown sugar onto the oatmeal. Once I realized, it was kind of too late. Conversation – OVER!! I put down the spoon of brown sugar that I was ready to drop in, and I examined the bowl to decide whether I would toss that one and make a new one or scoop some of the sugar out or just take it to him the way it is.

To put things in perspective, this is the same man that happened to be making his tea at the same time that I made my coffee and when he saw me put 3 packets of Splenda in my coffee, he about had a heart attack. “3 packets? WWWWWWOW! Do you know what that is? Have you heard of the health risks behind using so much of it? How does it make you feel?” and it kind of went on and on as he schooled me on Splenda. To this day, I only use one packet in my coffee which may or may not have anything to do with the conversation we had and cutting down to one packet didn’t happen overnight.

Anyway, so to put so much brown sugar in his oatmeal, just made me dread and wonder what kind of lecture I was going to receive. I didn’t want to waste the oatmeal, so I attempted to scoop some of the brown sugar out before it melted into molasses. I think I succeeded, somewhat, but this is still definitely way more than he ever uses on a regular basis.

So, again, i’m troubled with the question, ‘How do I tell him that there might be TOO much sugar in it?’ I hate making mistakes, like anyone else, so it bothered me that I haphazardly made his breakfast. Oh well. He’ll either like it or he won’t like it. I paid for the oatmeal, took out my $1.25 from the change, and made my way upstairs before it got cold. I told him that I hoped that it wasn’t too much sugar, he thanked me and that was that. He ended up leaving early because he wasn’t feeling well – hopefully the oversugar’ed oatmeal didn’t have anything to do with that sickening feeling. *sigh*

And I know what you’re thinking, the answer is no, even if I made it wrong it will not stop him from asking me again in the future. I’ll just accept my pleasant lecture on how he actually likes it, and make it right the next time. 😉